


Erect Again

by pastelkanan



Category: Uta no Prince-sama
Genre: Again, FML, M/M, an attempt to be funny was made, erect again is a pun off of rise again in case that wasnt clear, gc made me do it, i wrote this ages ago but i never posted it, it probably was idk, ranmaru is basically an emo angsty teenager he gives zero shits tbh, so here it is now i guess, the spiritual sequel to tsukiakari no dentist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-23 02:15:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8309854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pastelkanan/pseuds/pastelkanan
Summary: In which Reiji gets his ass handed to him by Ai, almost dies, and some other shit happens.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i apologize do not take this fic seriously

Ranmaru hadn't thought he would live to see the day that Ai lost his mind. Everything was going the way things usually went around there, what with Camus inhaling an entire bag of sugar and Reiji walking around with a maraca stuck up his ass, and it had been shaping up to be a regular day. It seemed that Ai had finally had enough.

Now, Ranmaru had never been in a fistfight with Ai. He didn’t have any reason to try to fight the guy and, frankly, he didn’t _want_ to. For fuck’s sake, Ai was literally made of metal. If Ai ever stubbed his toe on a table, the table would cry. Ranmaru had seen enough movies to know that being on the receiving end of a punch from a metal man was an easy way to die. A fistful of steel to the face was probably the worst possible way to go.

That was how Reiji went. Poor guy never saw it coming. One second everything was fine and everyone was thinking about how to kill him since there didn’t seem to be any other way to make him shut the fuck up, and then Ai beat them all to the punch. Quite literally. Reiji asked some stupid question like he usually did and Ai just… snapped. He didn’t want to deal with Reiji’s shit anymore and so Reiji got a faceful of a robot’s punch. It was absolutely _brutal._ And, frankly, just a bit hilarious. Everyone knew that eventually Reiji would get to be too much to deal with and someone would straight-up hit him, but nobody had thought that it would be Ai who did it.

On that day, Ai was a national hero. A national hero and possibly a murderer, but everyone had their flaws. Shining kept Ai out of serious trouble for punching his bandmate and almost caving in his face, but Reiji couldn’t be kept out of the hospital. Ai had knocked him right out and hitting his head on the floor when he fell certainly didn’t help the situation. Seeing Reiji in the hospital after getting wrecked by a robot would have been the funniest thing that had ever happened among the band if it wasn’t for the fact that the doctors said that it wasn’t clear if he’d wake up or not.

Ranmaru was appointed the official caretaker of the unconscious idiot. What was the worst that could happen to him while he was knocked the fuck out? Why did Ranmaru have to keep watch over him? It wasn’t like he was gonna get up and walk into the ocean or anything. He probably couldn’t even walk to the bathroom. He’d throw his legs over the side of the bed and the rest of him would follow suit and he’d just be a crumpled ball on the floor complaining about how bad it hurt that he fell out of bed. Hell, that was what usually happened in the morning. There was no reason to be worried.

That was what he told himself. Truth was, he was worried. Of course he was. Reiji wasn’t exactly Ranmaru’s favorite person--he didn’t have a favorite person; everyone irritated him, really--but he cared. They had gotten together before Camus and Ai did and probably before any of those losers in Starish started fucking, so of course he cared. Of course he was worried. A lot of things were gonna go straight to hell if Reiji didn’t wake up.

Shining would lose his shit about one of the quartet’s members kicking the bucket. Knowing him, though, he’d have another robot join the ranks to take Reiji’s place. Had to keep the cash cow working, after all. He hated it. Reiji might fall off the face of the earth and Shining would be concerned only about losing a performer, not a person.

“Don’t die,” Renmaru muttered to himself. Lord knew Reiji couldn’t hear him.

Two days passed. Everything was tense back at the dorms with everyone waiting for good news from the hospital. Yeah, Reiji could be irritating as hell, but everyone still loved him in a strange way. Even if Ai had punched him into next week. But, hey. Shit happens. It had only been a matter of time before someone knocked Reiji out, really. That didn’t make it any less of a pain in the ass.

If Reiji didn’t wake up, if he disappeared, Ranmaru was going to lose his fucking mind. He had gotten too used to the constant noise and irritation that Reiji brought everywhere with him. He always complained and told Reiji to shut up, but the truth of the matter was that he wasn’t sure he’d manage without it. After all this time, Reiji was an important staple in Ranmaru’s life. It was a bit of an issue.

 

-

 

Ranmaru was startled out of his sleep that night when someone suddenly grabbed his wrist. Despite the incredible amount of bandages on his face, Reiji still managed to say, “Ai really doesn’t want to be my friend, does he?”

“You’re just now catching on?” Ranmaru rolled his eyes. “Dumbass. Nobody wants to be friends with you aside from, who, Otoya? I can’t believe you lasted so long before getting your ass handed to you.”

“Everything hurts.”

“Your own fault. Shouldn’t have asked them if they wanted to make a friendship cake or whatever.”

“That was a good idea, though,” Reiji replied in that pouty voice of his. “Would’ve been great.”

“It was a shit idea and you know it.”

Despite the pain Reiji _said_ he was in, he still managed to laugh. “It was a good idea.”

“Was not.”

Reiji groaned, let go of Ranmaru’s wrist, and tried to sit up a little farther. Ranmaru kept careful watch as Reiji did his best to readjust. Most of his body was fine, completely unharmed. It was his head that got banged up. “Don’t call the nurses or anyone,” Reiji requested once he was comfortable again. “We have to plot our revenge.”

 _Ugh._ “Seriously? You were the one that got fucked over, not me. I have absolutely no reason to plot any revenge.”

“I thought I could count on you,” Reiji whined. “Don’t you care about my well-being?”

“You’re acting like a child.”

“At least hear me out before you say you won’t help.”

“Fine. What do you want?”

Reiji laughed, though it was muffled by the bandages all over his face. “Let’s tell ‘em I died.”

There was a long pause between them before Ranmaru cleared his throat. “Seriously? You want to tell them that you fucking died? _Why?”_

“They’d stop being such jerks about me wanting to be friends if they thought I was dead,” Reiji explained. “Plus, it’d be hilarious if I showed up all alive when I’m supposed to be dead, right? They’d be horrified.”

Ranmaru sighed. “Exactly why we shouldn’t do it. Do you want to give everyone a heart attack? They don’t deserve that much, do they? Think rationally about this, would you? They just want to be coworkers, not friends.” He shrugged. “Maybe it’s time you let it go. Stop trying to befriend them all the time.”

He had to be the rational one. It was a funny idea, in all honesty. He thought it was pretty funny. There had been some reaction videos of people seeing others that were supposed to be dead walk into a room and, frankly, if he could see Camus get all freaked out like that, it would be well worth it. But he had to be sane.

Reiji was probably just high on pain meds. Nothing more, nothing less. Reiji wasn’t the kind of person to be so cruel as to fake his own death to scare the people around him. He was like a little puppy of some sort. All he wanted was for everyone to be his friend and to have fun and all that shit that puppies did. Whatever all that was. Ranmaru was a cat person. How was he supposed to know what dogs did? Still, Reiji didn’t have a cruel bone in his body.

At least, that was what Ranmaru thought. But there they were, Reiji suggesting that they temporarily fake his death just to scare the shit out of their other two bandmates. Or something. It was easily the strangest conversation Ranmaru had ever had with that maracas-loving fuck. And he was genuinely considering going along with it, regardless of what words were actually coming out of his mouth.

Ranmaru’s eyes met Reiji’s after a moment of intense pleading. Ranmaru scoffed and said, “Alright. Let’s do it.”

 

-

 

So they did. There were a few things to be taken care of before they could do anything serious, though. There were a few people they had to let in on the plan if they were going to succeed and not ruin everything. Shining had to know, unfortunately. _That_ was not an enjoyable conversation. Next came Starish, since the kids would be horrified to hear of their senpai’s death and would never trust Reiji or Ranmaru again after such a prank. Cecil and Syo were both thrilled; Cecil longed for revenge against all the shitty situations Camus had put him in and Syo was ready to get back at Ai for that killer schedule he had made up that one time. The others either thought it was cruel or stupid, but not one of them tried to stop the prank.

Naturally, it was Cecil and Syo passed along the message to Camus and Ai that Reiji had departed. They delivered the message under the lie that Ranmaru was too broken up to do it himself and needed to be left alone, so absolutely _nobody_ was to bother him. As far as _those_ two knew, Reiji’s body was going through the process of, well, whatever dead bodies went through right after they died. It was almost funny how easily they believed it. Almost. It was mostly pathetic. Weren’t those two supposed to be smart?

They also said that Ranmaru would be back soon, once he had calmed down from everything and could stand the trip back. He did have to prepare himself, though. He had to make sure he was ready to deal with everyone and convince _those_ two that Reiji was really gone and all that shit. It was gonna be one hell of an adventure.

 

-

 

Two more days passed before the hospital called Ranmaru to come get Reiji and take him home. Camus and Ai thought that the whole thing was being kept silent for as long as possible, right up until the funeral. As far as they knew, the following day would be the funeral and Ranmaru was going to make sure some of the arrangements were all in order.

Needless to say, that _certainly_ didn’t happen. Not when there was no funeral to plan.

Especially not after all those days of Reiji being in the hospital where some very _specific_ acts were rather forbidden. So those two made a bit of a pit stop on the day home to release all that pent up energy. Hey, one of ‘em might’ve been generally irritated by life and the other might’ve had most of his face broken by a fistful of robot punch, but they were still guys. Still guys who had, for some reason, committed to each other and had certain… desires, so to speak. Reiji may have gotten his face all banged up, but the rest of him was just fine. Perfectly fine. It was nice. It was really, really nice to be back together. Even if things were a bit slower than usual due to Reiji’s injuries.

Whatever.

But they had to go home eventually to see the fallout of their plan. They got back to the dorms and made their way to the room where Camus and Ai usually had their afternoon tea. Well, more like where Camus had his tea and five pounds of sugar while Ai did whatever the fuck he was doing over there. Was he charging? Probably. He was a piece of technology, after all. Robots probably had to charge just the way phones did. Probably. Oh, who cared?

 Ranmaru flung the door open and startled those two out of their peaceful moment.

“Kurosaki,” Camus growled. “What is the meaning of this?” he demanded, evidently less than pleased about the fact that he jumped at the sudden noise and actually spilled a bit of tea on himself. Ranmaru tried to keep himself from laughing. Goddamn. Any other day and he would’ve lost his shit.

He sighed and took a seat across from Camus, attempting to look as depressed as humanly possible. He must have looked pitiable, what with his eyeliner basically nonexistent and his hair fussed to hell and back. Both of those things were Reiji’s fault, but that was beside the point.

Ai asked, “Did everything go alright? Is it all in order?”

“More or less,” Ranmaru replied. “Someone’s coming to talk about the last few things. They’ll be here in just a minute. Barely beat ‘em here.” He looked over at the doorway. Camus and Ai followed his gaze, both of them most likely expecting to see some old funeral parlor man to come walking in the door.

And then Reiji waltzed into the room with a massive grin on his face.

Needless to say, it didn’t end very well.


End file.
